


Black

by ZoeBug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Introspection, Metaphors, RivaMika Week, RivaMika Week 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for RivaMika Week 2014 - Day 1 - Iridescent</p><p>He remembers once learning that black is what we see when something absorbs all light that hits it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black

**Author's Note:**

> Happy RivaMika Week everyone!
> 
> Day 1 Prompt: Iridescent - "displaying a play of lustrous colors like those of the rainbow"
> 
> Interpretation: "Black can result from a combination of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors" -Wikipedia definition of how the color black is achieved

He remembers once learning that black is what we see when something absorbs all light that hits it. It is what we see when nothing is reflected back; the surface taking and consuming all directed at it.

Levi used to think that fit him more that it fit her. He wouldn't have described her as the absence of light, nor lack of reflection of it. Black suited her only in aesthetics and not at all in metaphor, he used to believe.

He, out of everyone, would be the one to take; to absorb and to let nothing out, he thinks.

He is black out of vulnerability and out of fear.

She is nothing of the kind.

He begins to doubt this theory, however, when he sees her one day soaring over the obstacle course in her gear, her pitch dark hair like the flitting wing of a raven flashing through the sky and realizes maybe there is a different way to be black besides his own.

It is then that he beings to feel as though all the light within him is being pulled toward her.

 

 

"Ackerman!"  
  
That dark hair flashes in a soaring arc as her head whips to turn toward him, the rays of sun setting over the training yard catching the strands and he doubts it again as he subtly detects hints of red and blue and gold and green within them as she jogs easily back towards him and things begin to rearrange themselves within him.

Directly in front of him, she halts, her back straightening as she asks:

"What is it, Sir?"

He studies her - the spectrum of pink in the flush raised under her pale skin from exertion, the darker shade of her lips, parted slightly, her breathing somewhat heightened from jogging, the marginally darker beige of a subtle scar on her cheek...

And then he meets her eyes, wide and anticipating - dark...so very dark like vast expanses in the myriad of space and he now, truly, begins to understand the color black because they, like she, like it, are suddenly all-consuming.

"...Nevermind. Dismissed, Cadet."

He flicks his eyes away from hers feeling as though, even drawing himself from their contact, a piece of him remains within them.

"Of course, Sir," she replies respectfully as she turns to leave, taking part of him with her.

He is drawn to her and every part of himself that is pulled toward her becomes impossible to retrieve. Every aspect of him - professional, personal, sexual, even subconscious: the spectrum of himself is sucked toward her, shimmering with want and admiration, spiraling into shining devotion as it goes.

 

His black is a different variety than hers.

When they kiss for the first time, it feels as if he is trying to draw her soul from her with his lips, trying to absorb all her color and light and, ashamed, he swears if anyone could look upon him now he would be nothing but a shadow, black and devoid of light because goddamn if he doesn't scrabble, frenzied, to clutch at every color he can get a hold of in this dark, desperate world.

She is black too, he realizes, but of a more noble type.

She is not black like he is, not black because she accumulates without release all light and color she attains like he does: selfishly and in fear of losing something, _anything_ he has fought to achieve.

She is black because she is brave and strong - stronger than he could ever hope to be.

She is black because within her is contained the entirety of the spectrums of both color and light. Within her - this powerful, beautiful creature - there are universes of light that she has absorbed and maintained because she is strong enough to capture not one, not some, but all and hold it within her simultaneously, bravely, for those who cannot.

And he is helpless in her wake. He, a stray little shadow sacredly playing at true darkness, is now caught in that crowded, gorgeous expanse of beautiful black and has become a part of it - spiraling and mixing into the gorgeous, pure blackness of everything inside her.

And here, amidst all that she carries within her, it is so, so colorful and blindingly bright.

**Author's Note:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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